I wanted to show you a new site that has just come up. It is called Deja View and is written by Andreas Deja, a animator who has worked at Disney for thirty years. Andreas was the lead animator for characters such as Jafar from Aladdin (1992), Scar from The Lion King (1994), and Lilo from Lilo and Stitch (2002). He has also spent his whole professional career collecting old animation, particularly from the legendary Nine Old Men.

The Nine Old Men are nine animators who were responsible for bringing many of the Disney characters, from the late 1930’s to the beginning of the 1980’s, to life. The Nine Old Men are some of the greatest influences for the medium of animation and are responsible for creating many of the foundations most animators these days stand on. All the Nine Old Men have passed away, the last being Ollie Johnson in 2008. Luckily many of the Nine Old Men were mentors to Andreas. I know he stayed friends with Ollie Johnson, Frank Thomas, and Eric Larson to the end of their lives. So far his blog seems to be devoted to talking about these great animators.

I recommended the blog to anyone looking to go into animation. Unlike historians who talk about these great men from mostly an outsiders perspective, Deja has personal experience with many of these people and the ability to express who these animators were from a animators perspective. Deja is a animation legend himself. He was a key figure in the rise of Disney animation in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. Deja is also a huge advocate for keeping 2D animation alive, rather then having all studios converting completely to CG animation. Deja was known for his ability to animate the villain. He was the lead in bringing to life characters like Gaston, Scar, and Jafar. Yet he showed himself a good lead animator for the hero as well with characters such as Lilo, Mama Odie from Princess and the Frog, and just recently Tigger in the new Winnie the Pooh movie coming out this July.

If you want to hear from Andreas I would recommend you listen to these podcasts from The Animation Podcast: part 1, part 2, and part 3. I am sure you will find Andreas’ story on how he became an animator inspiring and he gives great insight on the medium of animation at Disney in 2005, when this interview was taken.

Without any further to do I give you the Link to Andreas site Deja View: